FIRE ALARMS

Hokitika Guardian, 16 May 1929, Page 8

FIRE ALARMS

A SUGGESTED SYSTEM

for some.lime past the Hokitika Fire Brigade has heeii considering an alteration in the system of giving fire alarms to its members, and an outline a system in operation in Blenheim is covered by the following extracts from a letter received lately in answer to enruiiries made : firstly, 1 think it is ridiculous for no I’. and T. to say the alarm system old not be done in your town : it is only half the work of the ordinary telephone. "Write to the District Telegraph Engineer kor the District, he would have headquarters at Greymouth, I should think, you could find out. The system is a good one. We acre, of course, had to put up with the public and their motor ears, in fact getting to a fire was quite an adventure, especially for the men on their mcycles from their homes. Also it is much easier working at a fire, as a crowd tends to make ior conlusion am 1 men sometimes get bustled under those conditions. Since the alarms have been working here, we have the whole shew to ourselves. Sometimes the constable on duty is the only outside man there. To describe the system—a single wire is run out on the P. and T. poles to the various houses, through the hell to earth, a small double hell similar to the automatic telephone hells, and has

.no same ring, 'this is called a single wire, earth return circuit. The power lo ring the Dells is supplied by a generator, manual. This is the same as is in the old style turn the handle telephone, you have to turn the handle sharply, and as you turn so the bells the houses ring. We have two generators here for 17 houses; 12 off the one generator would he the limit I should think. The cost is £4 10s pet mile per year tor the street nil mg, •> miles cost us £22 10s per year, that inc'udes maintenance. The installation oi the hells and generators is a first cost, each house cost Cl Os lor the hell mid fitting that is a straight out puicnase, also the generators 30s each.

So much for the system, but your greatest difficulty perhaps wilMic the same as ours was, and that is, vo' cannot afford to connect up men who are not reliable, men who do not always turn out and men who are always shifting about. There were three men hero who had to go, it would have been too costly wiring them up. II a man shifts you have to pay for labour shifting and installing the hell, also extending the wire. They may have to take down say half a mile of wire in one end ol i'!,'<! town and put that half mile up* agaip in some other part of the town, and that is costly the way they work, one man up a pole and three or four holding the ladder below. You would linvc to put your domestic affairs in order first before you could consider the system, not that I am suggesting your affairs are not alright, but as a general rule all brigades have their unreliable men. 1 know we lmd some here. In fact the alarms have been directly responsible for five men leaving our Brigade. There is no dodging when the alarm rings outside a man’s bedroom door, he can’t say he did not hear the hell and every man is accounted for. Strange to say this has its advantages. Our average attendance went from about 15 men to 21 men when the alarms went in. We have about 24 members, including the four engineers. Now, 4 believe you have a membership of about 30 men. It seems to me it would certainly he to your advantage to put the system in. You could perhaps reduce to 20 keen men. "Work this out in the soring of uniforms ancl equipment and it would pay for the installation. Also with too many houses wired up you would perhaps need more than two generators, even three or four, and it would lie quite a job for a man to have to turn all these. Two can .he rung conveniently: first one and then the other. If your station is an upstairs building, as ours is, you can have two up and two down, each sot ringing on t„ the lines. In fact, most of our calls are rung at night by the constable on night duty. He eomes in downstairs and gets going on the generator. There is one hell rings upstairs from the bottom generator and that wakes the single men sleeping there. We a I get the call at the same time, and as the men are living all over the town, there is sure* to he one or two men waiting at the plug when tin* motor arrives. The system has many advantages.